Kate Sedley - The Green Man

My lord of Gloucester was plainly unamused by such tardiness, but merely said, ‘Welcome, Cousin,’ with a dryness of tone that might have conveyed annoyance to anyone with a less thick skin than my temporary master. Albany laughed.

John Tullo led up the bay and stood ready to assist the duke into the saddle. The two squires were slightly to the rear, waiting to mount their own horses, while I and the patient beast, who had already borne me so many weary miles, eyed one another with mutual suspicion. As far as I could see, Davey Gray and James Petrie were nowhere in view, the latter, in any case, always riding with the baggage waggons. What Davey did was a bit of mystery. Sometimes he attended upon the duke, but a great deal of the time he went missing. I wondered where he was during these absences, and might have suspected him of gaining experience of life amongst the horde of camp followers who straggled in the wake of the army, except that he so obviously had little interest in women.

Albany waved John Tullo aside and vaulted, unaided, into the saddle, displaying at one and the same time his superb physical fitness and his splendid horsemanship. But as he did so, the bay, who had been fidgeting only a very little, suddenly reared, whinnying furiously and slashing the air in front of him with vicious, flailing hooves.

There was a flurry of movement, as those in the vicinity wrenched their own steeds out of the way, and cries of alarm as it seemed certain that Albany must be thrown, and thrown badly. John Tullo leaped for the horse’s head, but it was the duke’s own unrivalled skill that finally brought the bay under control, and his voice, whispering soft endearments in its ear, that quietened the outraged animal.

The groom, white-faced and trembling, muttered something that only Albany and the squires understood. The duke gave an uncertain laugh.

‘Fresh, indeed, John,’ was his answer, before turning to my lord of Gloucester and saying with bravado, ‘My groom warned me, Cousin, that the animal was restive after the inactivity of the past few days, but even he hadn’t counted on quite how restive.’ He made a sweeping gesture to include the other nobles, now crowding around him again in an admiring group, impressed, in spite of themselves, by his remarkable horsemanship. ‘There was no need for anxiety, my lords. None whatsoever. There was not a moment when I did not have the animal under control. You were in no danger, I assure you.’

There was a polite, if somewhat dubious murmur.

Lord Stanley said diplomatically, ‘The anxiety was not for ourselves, Your Grace, but for Your Grace’s own person. You might have been very seriously injured, had you been thrown.’

Northumberland nodded agreement.

‘Very seriously injured,’ he concurred, adding infelicitously, ‘If not killed.’

I saw the Duke of Gloucester’s sudden frown and quick glance round, the first swiftly smoothed away with a pleasant smile and the second curbed in mid-movement.

‘I’m sure there was no danger of that, my lord. Our Cousin of Scotland is noted as an equestrian of great style and flair. And now, gentlemen, we must set forward if the army is to be even halfway to Leicester by nightfall.’ There was a general murmur of assent. Duke Richard turned once again to Albany. ‘You are recovered, Cousin?’

‘Recovered?’ Albany’s tone was disdainful. ‘What is there to recover from, my lord? As you can see, the animal is perfectly well-behaved now. He has always had a little playfulness in his disposition.’

But playfulness, I thought to myself as I mounted my own placid steed, was not the word I would have used. The bay had been seriously put out by something. He had most definitely been harmed in some way; a dig, a prod, a cut, maybe, with the tip of somebody’s knife. I had seen the whites of his eyes as he reared. And I had seen the whites of Albany’s, too. There had been a moment, albeit fleeting, when he had been terrified.

I was not surprised, therefore, as we rode out through the great gates of Fotheringay, when he turned his head and said curtly, ‘Stay close, Roger.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

I took up my position a pace or two behind the rump of his horse, not caring who I jostled out of my path as I did so. I tried to picture to myself the scene as John Tullo had led up the bay for the duke to mount. The two squires had definitely been there, and either one of them could have made the animal rear. Any movement in that crush would have passed unnoticed, and I had been too busy contemplating the unwelcome ride ahead of me to pay Murdo and Donald any particular attention. It was inexcusable: I knew full well that after the events of the previous night, I should have been alert and on my guard against mischief. I was failing in my duty; and if any harm were to befall Albany, it would be the worse for me. I owed it to myself, as well as to the duke, to be more vigilant.

It was as the brilliant cavalcade streamed across the flat Northamptonshire plain, banners bravely waving and flapping taut in a freshening breeze, that I had a sudden, clear vision of that tableau in the courtyard. I could see again the two squires and the tension on Donald Seton’s face as John Tullo had led the bay forward for Albany to mount. I wondered that it had not struck me at the time that the man was as taut as a fiddle string. Had he been waiting for something to happen? Or had he simply been afraid that some mischief was brewing? I tried to recall the look on his companion’s face, but Murdo’s expression rarely, if ever, gave anything away.

I let my imaginary gaze roam over the rest of the crowd, but saw nothing except a blur of bodies. And then, suddenly, just as I was giving up on what I felt certain was a fruitless exercise, a face stood out from the throng; a delicate face with fair, wavy hair escaping from beneath a green cap worn at a rakish angle; large eyes that, close to, would prove to be violet-blue. A pretty, womanish face.

Davey!

It took us almost another week to reach the city of York, with a number of nightly stops along the way, while the mounted advance guard, of which I was one, waited for the sluggishly moving army to catch us up and pitch camp. The first night, we slept at Leicester, where the abbey reluctantly provided bed and board for the Dukes of Gloucester and Albany and other such nobles as could be accommodated, without actually turning the monks into the fields to find what comfort they could on the hard ground.

Because of Albany’s insistence on my continued presence in his bed at night and at his side during the day, I was assured at all times of the best lodgings to be had; better even than that accorded to many of the minor nobility, who were obliged to take shelter in the various local houses or hostelries available to them. Some, indeed, were forced, on occasions, to have their tents removed from the baggage waggons and pitched alongside the common soldiery, bivouacking in the open countryside. Squires, body servants and the like were lucky to find room wherever they could.

I expected that the continuing favour shown to me by Albany would arouse resentment amongst his immediate household, and was vaguely surprised when the five of them persisted in treating me with the same contemptuous tolerance that they had displayed since I was first introduced into their midst in London. None of them liked me — or seemed not to, at any rate — and all avoided my company when they could; but there was no actual animosity, no overt hostility, not the slightest indication that they had the least suspicion why Albany had asked for me to be his personal bodyguard when he had the five of them to take care of him.

I put this point to the duke that first night after we left Fotheringay, when we rested at Leicester Abbey. But he shrugged the question aside, anxious to discuss the incident with the bay.